Their world on their shoulders

Published 4:00 am, Monday, April 27, 1998

These are among the hardships of life without lockers at Cunha Intermediate School.

Gone is that oblong metal world that provided students with a place to stash books, a spot to chat between classes, a private space to hang pictures of a favorite rock band or slip a note to a friend.

Now, students are lugging around notebooks, lunches and other school necessities in backpacks. Heavy backpacks.

In recent years, more and more middle and high schools inCalifornia have been getting rid of lockers due to concerns about vandalism, maintenance costs, drugs and weapons, and disciplinary problems such as tardiness and student fights. Some new schools are even being built without lockers.

While some students and parents gripe about losing them, school officials arguethat lockers aren't really needed anymore and cause more trouble than they're worth.

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At Cunha, some 375 lockers were removed from two buildings about five years ago, said Principal Randy Chapin.

"There's always the increase of finding contraband in the lockers, some weapons, drugs and cigarettes," he said. "In the mind of a sixth-grader, getting a locker is like getting an apartment. It's like having their own personal space."

Now that space is gone.

"That sucks," said Cunha seventh-grader Brittany Tjogas, after she and her classmates plopped down their backpacks while waiting for the bus after school. "We need (lockers) to put stuff in. My backpack is like 10 pounds. I have a back problem because of it."

"It stinks because they're too heavy. They make your back and shoulders ache," said eighth-grader Greg Kuhn.

Jo Stroud, a Half Moon Bay chiropractor, said she has treated about five Cunha students for back pain in the last year.

"They complained of back pain and they didn't really know where it was coming from," said Stroud. After putting the students' backpacks on a scale and finding that they weighed from 10 to 25 pounds, Stroud gave them ergonomic tips and suggested that they lighten their load.

Some prefer packs&lt;

Some students, like eighth-grader Christian Diggs, prefer backpacks to lockers. "You know where all your stuff is," he said.

But parent Mona Carver wishes her daughter had a locker.

"I pack her lunch," said Carver. "By the second period, her lunch is smashed. She told me to stop putting in chips because they were all crumbled."

Kelly Huber, president of Cunha's Parent-Teacher Association, said that last year her daughter had an $89 pair of basketball shoes stolen because she didn't have a hall locker.

"She didn't have room in her backpack. She left them in her math class," said Huber, adding that she has received about five complaints from parents in the last year about the no-locker policy.

Chapin defends it, saying that lockers can also lead to tardiness and fights when older students try to block younger ones from using them. Jammed lockers also caused students to be late for class, he said.

Since the lockers have been removed, there has been a dramatic drop in disciplinary problems and the hallways are quieter, he said.

Maintenance a factor&lt;

According to Chapin, the growing student population and the cost of maintaining the lockers - changing all the combinations before the school year started, fixing jammed doors and broken door handles, and replacing broken locks - were factors in their removal.

A school maintenance supervisor estimated it cost about $10,000 a year to maintain the lockers.

Theft was also a problem, Chapin said, adding that a student could get other students' combinations simply by surreptitiously watching them open their lockers.

According to Chapin, it would cost about $45,000 to buy 500 new lockers, a price that does not include installation.

At Evergreen School District in south San Jose, none of the three middle schools has lockers, including a new campus opened in 1991.

Maryann Cavallo, the district's assistant superintendent for instruction, said kids would forget their combinations and sometimes lockers would get broken into.

"It was basically a housekeeping item," she said.

Vandalism problems&lt;

In west San Jose, lockers were removed from Castro Middle School about 10 years ago because of vandalism.

Principal Kate Ford said lockers are not needed nowadays because instead of several short classes, middle schools are using longer, integrated blocks of curriculum.

"We don't have tardiness between classes because there's nowhere to go but class," said Ford. "Kids carry backpacks and are responsible for them all day long. . . . It's almost a status symbol of how full your backpack is."

Vandalism was cited as the main reason most of the high schools and middle schools in Sacramento City Unified School District have removed lockers or don't let students use existing ones.

To help lighten their load, students at Evergreen District middle schools and at Cunha receive separate sets of textbooks - one to keep at home, the other to keep in the classroom.

But that still leaves lunches, binders and notebooks to carry around.

"If they've got backpacks that supposedly weigh 15 to 20 pounds, there's stuff in there that doesn't need to be there," said Chapin, adding that students have the option of carrying one or two binders instead of separate ones for each class.

Backpack survey&lt;

A survey published in the October 1997 edition of the Cunha Times, the school newspaper, found that the average weight of 30 backpacks put on a scale was 11 pounds. Fifteen weighed between 10 and 12 pounds. The heaviest backpack was close to 30 pounds, according to the survey.

The survey also found that 39 out of 50 students questioned said they wanted lockers.

Earlier in the school year, about 120 of Cunha's sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders signed a petition asking that the lockers be put back.

"Doubtful," said Chapin, either at the current campus or a new one that is expected to open around 2000.

That's bad news for eighth-grader Adrienne Lillie, who signed the petition.

"They want us to be more responsible, so I think they should let us have lockers so they can trust us," said Adrienne, whose backpack cargo included four binders and two literature books.

Besides having to lug around a heavy backpack, you might even end up taking one home that belongs to another student, said seventh-grader Nicole Merlo.

"It's confusing because there must be a thousand JanSport backpacks," she said. "Some people will take home the wrong backpack." &lt;